Communist Party – Russian Rulers Historyhttps://russianrulershistory.com
Russia's rich and beautiful history through its rulers from Rurik to PutinSun, 05 Jun 2016 21:15:23 +0000en-US
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1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.3.3No Foreseeable End – Vladimir Putinhttps://russianrulershistory.com/episode-170-no-foreseeable-end-vladimir-putin/
https://russianrulershistory.com/episode-170-no-foreseeable-end-vladimir-putin/#respondSun, 05 Jun 2016 21:15:23 +0000http://russianrulershistory.com/?p=969Starting with my episode 170 podcast on Putin, I will be sharing my scripts with my audience moving forward. Hope you enjoy it. Over the past nearly six years, I’ve covered a number of topics relating to Russian history. In the beginning, when I planned this podcast, I was going to spend a couple of […]

Starting with my episode 170 podcast on Putin, I will be sharing my scripts with my audience moving forward. Hope you enjoy it.

Over the past nearly six years, I’ve covered a number of topics relating to Russian history. In the beginning, when I planned this podcast, I was going to spend a couple of years covering the people who ruled over the country my mother’s side of the family came from. Well that plan went out the window early on.

I fell in love with Russian history. My initial plan was to have around 60 or so episodes. Currently, this is the 196th one as some were not numbered.

About six months ago, I decided that it was time to end things. My professional life was entering a new phase with some amazing opportunities coming to reality. As the months went on I resigned myself to putting together a plan to wrap the podcast up.

Problem was, my family knew that this podcast and the tens of thousands of my listeners were now part of my life and who I am.

On New Year’s Eve 2015, my wife and youngest daughter convinced me to continue the podcast as long as I wanted which I will continue to do as long as there are topics to cover.

Since I made the announcement on Facebook that the show will go on, I’ve been overwhelmed by the positive response. Thanks for that.

So what will the next phase of the podcast be? I will go back to the beginning premise of the show except I’m going in reverse. I’m going to cover the Russian rulers all over again but differently.

Instead of recounting their lives, achievements and failures, I’ll give you my take, or opinion on their impact on history, on the people and the world. I will be a fair amount more opinionated in the forthcoming Rulers podcast series. When I get back to other facet of Russian history, I’ll go back to my more objective self. I feel like I’ve earned a few opinions and hope no one gets offended by them since that will not be my intention. Since I covered each of the Rulers, I’ve learned so much more about the history of Russia that I’ve developed a different point of view in many instances than I did initially. So, I’m going to start with Putin and work my way back to Rurik.

Of course, the most difficult will be Putin as his history has yet to be written and who knows what his legacy will be. Hence the title of today’s podcast, ‘No Foreseeable End.’ Neither this podcast or Putin’s leadership has any end in sight.

An example of what you might hear is a new take on the rules of Catherine the Great, which will not be all that flattering, and a new opinion of her son Paul, which will be way better than my original thoughts.

I’ll also try to do a better job of covering a couple of rulers I did a poor job of in the first instance such as Leonid Brezhnev and Vladimir the Great.

Now on to the last Russian ruler. Way back on episode 117 on May 13, 2013, we covered the life and rise of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, the son of Vladimir Spiridovich and Maria Ivanovna Shelomova born on October 7, 1952.

He is the first post-Lenin leader who did not live through the reign of Joseph Stalin, actually only a few brief months as a baby. Putin didn’t have to go through the horrors of World War II as well. Vladimir grew up through the height of Soviet power and prestige while also experiencing its fall, collapse and breakup.

By the time he assumed power after the resignation of Boris Yeltsin on December 31, 1999 Russia was in a mess. It had lost its prestige on the global stage in the eyes of many, especially in the West. They did not lose their feeling of being a superpower in their own eyes which made the Russian people and certainly their government feel disrespected. It is something they are feeling to this day and I believe it effects their policies and actions since and into 2016.

Because of when he was born, Putin was indoctrinated in the Soviet way. As many of you know, the Communist Party had strict controls on what was taught, what the media was able to say and much of the social and political life of the country. Their rule was one done with an iron fist.

Recently, on the forum Quora, I answered a question as to whether today’s problems in Russia had anything to do with Soviet policies. My answer was that there wasn’t a whole lot different between the Tsarist bureaucracy and that of the Soviet Union except different people. Catherine the Great instituted and codified a bureaucracy that is so entrenched in Russian society and government that very little can get done unless you grease the palms of so many people that the cost of getting anything done is staggering. Case in point, the Sochi Olympics and their near $50-billion-dollar price tag.

Vladimir Putin inherited this system and it is entirely ingrained into the psyche of the people. Also, I believe that the only way to handle this level of corruption and stagnant behavior is through a strong leader. Yes, the ideal is to rid the country of the corrupt people but pray tell how do you do that without grinding things to a halt? My final line in my response to the question on Quora was that while my answer may not be satisfying, it would probably qualify as a dissertation question for a PhD candidate in Russian and Soviet history. It is that complex.

Back to Putin. Since the last podcast about Vladimir back in May of 2013, a lot has gone on in Russia as you might know. They annexed Crimea and had surrogates of theirs take control of parts of eastern Ukraine. Has there been direct involvement of Russian troops in the Ukraine? Undoubtedly. Has the Russian government acknowledged their involvement? Of course not.

Putin’s stance has been that this is internal to Russia and is no one else’s business. Of course the rest of the world didn’t buy that line so sanctions were put in place to make their point of view known. Putin dismissed the sanctions as he was making enough money as a major oil producer when prices were much higher, around $104 a barrel, so Russia’s economy was doing fine, money was flowing in and Putin looked like a genius.

But, we all know what has happened since then. As of January 17, 2016 the price has dropped below $30 a barrel. The ruble has crashed and the once vibrant Russian economy has come to a grinding halt. Putin was forced to cut tens of thousands of government jobs, cut back on much needed infrastructure repairs and expansions and things are looking pretty bleak. Of course, he blames the West and the sanctions and not his, in my opinion, very myopic economic policies.

Oil prices dropping are not the only problems his economy faces. Across the board, many resources the Russian’s supply to the world have dropped. Many precious metals can be found around the country but their prices have dropped below levels that make it economical to pull out of the ground. Until these prices rise, the Russian people and Putin’s image will suffer.

My fear at this point is whether a crisis will arise that will cause the price of oil to rise. A manufactured one may come about, who knows. All that is certain is that the Russian economy will not recover until the price of oil recovers. Even though Putin has a very high approval rating, estimate vary between 70-90%, this won’t last long if people don’t have jobs, food and other basic necessities.

I believe that the crisis in Ukraine was caused by the need to keep global tensions up which in turn would prop up the prices of commodities such as oil and minerals. What the Russians didn’t count on was Saudi Arabia’s idea that they could turn the spigots all the way on which created a glut on the market driving the prices down. That and the slowing of the Chinese economy was a double whammy on Russia.

As of January 17, 2016, Putin is, in my opinion, caught between a rock and a hard place. He put his economic chips in with the price of oil and now he is feeling the brunt of its drop in price. Where things go economically from here is anyone’s guess.

This is where I will stop with Vladimir Putin. In a few years, I will come back to him and see what he’s done and do a further assessment on his Presidency and impact on Russia.

]]>https://russianrulershistory.com/episode-170-no-foreseeable-end-vladimir-putin/feed/0Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovichhttps://russianrulershistory.com/grand-duke-michael-alexandrovich/
https://russianrulershistory.com/grand-duke-michael-alexandrovich/#commentsThu, 13 Jun 2013 23:40:39 +0000http://russianrulershistory.com/?p=905Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich was the youngest son of Tsar Alexander III of Russia. He was asked to be Tsar after Nicholas II abdicated in 1917 but he never accepted. He was imprisoned by the Bolsheviks and murdered in 1918 at the age of 39. Born on December 4, 1878 at Anichkov Palace on Nevsky Prospekt in Saint Petersburg, Michael was […]

Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich was the youngest son of Tsar Alexander III of Russia. He was asked to be Tsar after Nicholas II abdicated in 1917 but he never accepted. He was imprisoned by the Bolsheviks and murdered in 1918 at the age of 39.

After his grandfather, Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881, the family was moved to the Gatchina Palace which was 29 miles south of Saint Petersburg. It was considered a safer place for the family at the time. Grand Duke Michael while leading a privileged life, did not live opulently at Gatchina. His father was a strict and solemn man who believed in discipline and a plainer life.

His younger sister Olga nicknamed him Floppy because of his propensity to flop into chairs; while his elder brother and parents called him Misha. While his father was a arch conservative, he was a loving man and his death when Grand Duke Michael was only 15 was hard on the boy.

He joined the military and was attached to the Horse Guards Artillery. Grand Duke Michael was third in line for the throne when Alexander III died but moved up one spot when his older brother George died in a motorcycle accident. At that moment, he was next in line until Nicholas and his wife Alexandra gave birth to the Tsarevich Alexei.

Michael’s romantic life was somewhat scandalous as he married a lower class woman, Natalia Sergeyevna Wulfert. Because of this, Nicholas II stripped Michael of his standing in the family and banished him from Russia until the outbreak of World War I.

Grand Duke Michael was a highly respected and popular military leader, unlike his older brother. He served his country well despite their woefully poor army. After the revolution caused his brother to abdicate, Michael was arrested on August 21, 1917 but released soon there after. On March 7, 1918 he was rearrested and executed on June 13th. He was the first of the Romanov’s to be murdered and certainly not the last.

]]>https://russianrulershistory.com/grand-duke-michael-alexandrovich/feed/2Lenin – #4 Worst Russian Rulerhttps://russianrulershistory.com/lenin-4-worst-russian-ruler/
https://russianrulershistory.com/lenin-4-worst-russian-ruler/#commentsSun, 31 Mar 2013 16:47:44 +0000http://russianrulershistory.com/?p=815 Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (episodes 70-72), born on April 22, 1870 is, in my opinion the number four worst ruler in Russian history. The founder of the Soviet Union, Lenin started Russia on a path that would lead to the deaths of tens of millions of people. While his toppling of the corrupt Tsarist regime, his […]

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (episodes 70-72), born on April 22, 1870 is, in my opinion the number four worst ruler in Russian history. The founder of the Soviet Union, Lenin started Russia on a path that would lead to the deaths of tens of millions of people. While his toppling of the corrupt Tsarist regime, his ruthlessness and his putting Joseph Stalin in a position of power that would lead to terrible consequences, places him on this list.

Born in Simbirsk, as Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov to a wealthy middle class family, he became disenchanted with the Tsarist regime early on. His radicalism became more fervent after his brother Sasha was executed during the reign of Tsar Alexander III. Lenin began to read more and more works of leftist writers like Karl Marx. The works that had the most influence on him were Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s novel What is to be Done?and of course Marx’s Das Kapital.

In 1894, he met the love of his life, fellow radical, Nadezhda “Nadya” Krupskaya. Lenin was introduced to other leftists who he debated with as to the methods of overthrowing the Tsarist regime. Some wanted to assassinate the Tsar, others, like Vladimir, called for patience, insisting on waiting for the right moment.

That moment happened in 1917 when Tsar Nicholas II abdicated the throne. Still the time was not right as the Provisional Government stepped into the void. Biding his time, Lenin returned from self-imposed exile in Finland to lead the Bolshevik’s to overthrow the government in November. Consolidating his position, he ordered the murder of anyone with ties to the old Tsarist regime. He approved the execution of the entire family of former Tsar Nicholas II.

The ensuing Civil War cost hundreds of thousands of lives due to the fighting and the ensuing period of famine. Lenin continued along the path of ruthlessly suppressing any dissent though the newly formed secret police, the Cheka. At the time, he was debating who to hand the power to after he died. The choice was either Leon Trotsky or Joseph Stalin. He unfortunately had place Stalin into positions that ultimately led to Joseph’s taking control after Lenin’s death in January of 1924.

Lenin’s brutality and his misguided vision wrapped in his ideal of Marxism-Leninism led to great suffering in Russia. It is for these reasons I place him as one of the worst leaders in Russian history.

]]>https://russianrulershistory.com/lenin-4-worst-russian-ruler/feed/7Brezhnev – #7 On The Worst Rulers Listhttps://russianrulershistory.com/brezhnev-7-on-the-worst-rulers-list/
https://russianrulershistory.com/brezhnev-7-on-the-worst-rulers-list/#commentsTue, 15 Jan 2013 16:15:54 +0000http://russianrulershistory.com/?p=748Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was the leader of the Soviet Union from 1964 until his death in 1982 (Episodes 102 and 103). His 18 year reign was second to only Joseph Stalin during the years of the USSR. Brezhnev’s time was marked by an economic stagnant time that has been blamed in part for the collapse […]

Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was the leader of the Soviet Union from 1964 until his death in 1982 (Episodes 102 and 103). His 18 year reign was second to only Joseph Stalin during the years of the USSR. Brezhnev’s time was marked by an economic stagnant time that has been blamed in part for the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Born in 1906 in the city of Dniprodzerzhynsk (aka Kamenskoe) in the Ukraine to a Russian working family, Brezhnev joined the Komsomol in 1923. He became a member of the Communist Party six years later. His education, like many of his colleagues was not an intellectual one but a technical one. Over the years he moved up the ladder, especially after the Great Purges of 1937-39 on the orders of Joseph Stalin.

During World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War, Brezhnev helped evacuate industry from the Ukraine east, ahead of the German advance. During those years he met his mentor, Nikita Khrushchev the man he eventually was to oust in 1964. At the end of his military service, he left as a Major General but had never really served in a fighting unit.

Quickly, Brezhnev began to move up the ladder once again serving as a First Secretary of his home region and later as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. When Stalin had died in 1953 his career looked quite bright as Khrushchev had begun to assume power. He was then made First Party Secretary of the Communist Party of theKazakh SSR. In 1957 he helped his mentor defeat the “Anti-Party Group” which helped him gain a place on the Politburo. Within a few years in became apparent that he was being groomed to take over from Khrushchev as he was made Second Secretary.

Starting in 1962, Khrushchev was becoming more and more erratic in his behavior and he plunged his country into the Cuban Missile Crisis (Episode 99). By 1964, Brezhnev and his fellow Politburo members had had enough so they orchestrated a coup that took out his mentor peacefully (Episode 101), a first in Soviet history.

Whereas Khrushchev was a reformer, Brezhnev was the opposite. He quickly reversed many of the more recent reforms put in place by the former leader and began to retrench and place his own cronies into positions of power. At the beginning of his reign, he shared power with Alexei Kosygin and Nikolai Podgorny. Over the years he played each against the other with him eventually taking sole control of the Soviet Union.

Brezhnev turned to the United States to discuss détente. The two nations were in the midst of the Cold War and an unsustainable arms race. The toll on the Soviet economy was staggering. The USSR was focused on military buildup at the expense of their people. Food and consumer product shortages began to show up with greater frequency. This led to more dissatisfaction but it was becoming increasingly difficult to speak out as Brezhnev began a policy of repression led by his eventual successor Yuri Andropov.

During his time as head of the USSR, he sent in troops to crush the Czechoslovakian uprising (the Prague Spring) and started the war in Afghanistan. This war was to produce a cooling between the two super powers, the US and the USSR. The Americans boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics and further damaged the Soviet economy by stopping all grain exports to them.

More and more, Brezhnev’s cronies dug their hands deeper into the pockets of the people with a level of corruption not seen since the late-Tsarist times. Not only did Leonid Illyich not do anything about the corruption, he seemingly encouraged it. It is this position that makes me place the man on the list of worst Russian/Soviet leaders.

When he died in 1982, the countries economy was in shambles and the corruption so deep that within nine short years, the USSR would be forced to dissolve under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev.

]]>https://russianrulershistory.com/brezhnev-7-on-the-worst-rulers-list/feed/2Gorbachev – #9 On the Worst Listhttps://russianrulershistory.com/gorbachev-9-on-the-worst-list/
https://russianrulershistory.com/gorbachev-9-on-the-worst-list/#commentsFri, 28 Dec 2012 19:21:33 +0000http://russianrulershistory.com/?p=694Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is considered by many in the West as being one of the most enlightened Soviet or Russian rulers of all time. In Russia on the other hand, he ranks at or near the bottom and for good reason. Despite the Nobel Peace Prize and the West’s glee at the end of communist […]

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is considered by many in the West as being one of the most enlightened Soviet or Russian rulers of all time. In Russia on the other hand, he ranks at or near the bottom and for good reason. Despite the Nobel Peace Prize and the West’s glee at the end of communist rule in the USSR, his domestic policies were an unmitigated disaster for the people he was supposed to protect.

Born in Gorbachev was born in Stavropol Krai in Russia into a peasant Ukrainian–Russian family on March 2, 1931. His beginnings were humble and the work hard but young Gorbachev made do. He was considered quite a bright young man but schooling would have to take a back seat in 1941 when the Soviet Union was invaded by Adolph Hitler’s Nazi forces. While he claims in his memoirs that the Nazi’s planned to kill everyone in his village, he never was at risk for death in his lifetime until possibly the attempted coup in 1991.

When he took over as head of the Soviet state in 1985 as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he was handed a totally corrupt and rotting system. Despite that, he was very naive in how he handled the domestic issues with no clear cut plan on how to overcome the issues. At first he believed that simply by replacing and moving old time Brezhnev cronies and replacing them with younger and supposedly more idealist communists that things would rebound. Instead, things kept getting worse by the day.

Seeing this happening, Gorbachev decided on radical reform without truly thinking things out. Perestroika and Glasnost were his two guiding ideologies but they were only vague ideas that meant little economically to the people of the Soviet Union. When the country began to dissolve, his policies did little to reverse the suffering of the people as food and consumer good shortages were rampant. When the country finally was disbanded, hunger and misery were widespread throughout Russia.

When I initially began my research into Gorbachev, I was wearing rose-colored glasses as the media and the U.S. government painted a pretty picture of the man. As I delved further into his life and times, it became more and more apparent that his reign as head of the Soviet state puts him on the list of worst rulers of Russian or Soviet history.

]]>https://russianrulershistory.com/gorbachev-9-on-the-worst-list/feed/5Khrushchev #10 – Best Russian Ruler Listhttps://russianrulershistory.com/khrushchev-10-on-the-best-russian-ruler-list/
https://russianrulershistory.com/khrushchev-10-on-the-best-russian-ruler-list/#commentsThu, 27 Dec 2012 17:35:16 +0000http://russianrulershistory.com/?p=686Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev is in my opinion, #10 on the list of best Russian rulers. Many might disagree but he did some impressive things in his time following the terror that was the rule of Joseph Stalin. Khrushchev was in a tough position when he came to power and he tried as much as possible […]

Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev is in my opinion, #10 on the list of best Russian rulers. Many might disagree but he did some impressive things in his time following the terror that was the rule of Joseph Stalin. Khrushchev was in a tough position when he came to power and he tried as much as possible to reform a corrupt and broken system. While he ultimately failed, the fact that he tried as hard as he did was good enough in my humble opinion to make the good ruler list.

Born on April 15, 1894 to a peasant family, this unlikely man rose to the pinnacle of power in the Soviet Union in 1953. Khrushchev survived the Great Purges of the late 1930’s, the Great Patriotic War (World War II) and the intrigues following Stalin’s death to make the grab for power. While many condemn him for participating in Stalin’s purges, it was either that or face his own demise. He did what he had to to survive. But when he had the opportunity to expose the murderous era he did so with great bravery and put himself into a great deal of peril as well.

His administration and rule were marked by a lot of highs and lows. One of Khrushchev’s high points is the so-called Secret Speech where he exposes the abuses of Stalin. Of his lows, there is little doubt that the Cuban Missile crises is top of the list. In between, he tried as hard as any Russian or Soviet leader to better the plight of his people. Reading his memoirs and studying his time in office, it is apparent that he truly tried to make the necessary reforms to raise up the standard of living in his country.

While erratic in his behavior, sometimes coming off as a buffoon, he was a man of conviction in a system that was corrupt at its core. Khrushchev stood far above any Soviet leader in my opinion and deserves a spot in the list of best rulers of Russia.

]]>https://russianrulershistory.com/khrushchev-10-on-the-best-russian-ruler-list/feed/7Cheka – Soviet Secret Police Createdhttps://russianrulershistory.com/cheka-soviet-secret-police-created/
https://russianrulershistory.com/cheka-soviet-secret-police-created/#respondThu, 27 Dec 2012 01:19:54 +0000http://russianrulershistory.com/?p=620The Cheka, “The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage” was founded by decree on December 20, 1917 by Vladimir Lenin. In order to tighten his grip on power and to set the stage for the brutal Russian Civil War, Lenin formed the Cheka to terrorize his opposition. Led originally by Felix Dzerzhinsky, by 1922, tens of thousands of […]

]]>The Cheka, “The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage” was founded by decree on December 20, 1917 by Vladimir Lenin. In order to tighten his grip on power and to set the stage for the brutal Russian Civil War, Lenin formed the Cheka to terrorize his opposition. Led originally by Felix Dzerzhinsky, by 1922, tens of thousands of people were arrested, tortured, and or executed by the various Cheka groups.

The organizational structure of the Cheka was created in regions like the oblast, guberniya, raion, uyezd, and volost Chekas. By 1922, there were hundreds of thousands of members of the Cheka, most in the fighting units in the Red Army. Their main targets were anyone associated with the old Tsarist regime, the clergy, anyone with any measurable amount of money or land holdings, and just about anyone who did not back the Bolshevik’s. People were encouraged to spy on their neighbors so anyone with a grudge against you could rat you out to a Cheka official which meant your death warrant was on its way.

Their goal, as Dzerzhinsky wrote in the Red Army journal Krasnaya Gazeta was, “Without mercy, without sparing, we will kill our enemies in scores of hundreds. Let them be thousands, let them drown themselves in their own blood. For the blood of Lenin and Uritsky … let there be floods of blood of the bourgeoisie – more blood, as much as possible…” After the attempted assassination of Lenin by Fanny Kaplan and the successful murder of Moisie Uritsky, both in 1918, the Red Terror was unleashed on the people.

Guided by Lenin’s belief that it was better to arrest 100 innocent people than to let one guilty person free. the Cheka was given a free hand to do whatever they pleased. You can imagine the kind of criminal minds that were allowed to perpetrate gross inhumane crimes against humanity. Into that, you have to understand that the White Army was as guilty of the same depravity as was the Red Army.

By 1922, the Cheka was reorganized and a new secret police agency, the GPU or OGPU was formed which morphed into the NKVD and eventually the KGB. Its legacy remains dark and foreboding, with countless shattered lives strewn in it wake. A sad part of Russia’s history.

]]>https://russianrulershistory.com/cheka-soviet-secret-police-created/feed/0Stalin’s Birthdayhttps://russianrulershistory.com/stalins-birthday/
https://russianrulershistory.com/stalins-birthday/#commentsTue, 18 Dec 2012 15:37:53 +0000http://russianrulershistory.com/?p=608Joseph Stalin, iron-fisted ruler of the Soviet Union from 1924 until 1953 was born on December 18, 1878. While some in Russia may celebrate his birthday, I cannot in good conscious do so. He was responsible for the murder of millions of innocent people which is beyond the scope of imagination. The man originally named Iosif […]

]]>Joseph Stalin, iron-fisted ruler of the Soviet Union from 1924 until 1953 was born on December 18, 1878. While some in Russia may celebrate his birthday, I cannot in good conscious do so. He was responsible for the murder of millions of innocent people which is beyond the scope of imagination.

The man originally named Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili born to Ketevan Geladze and Besarion Jughashvili in Gori, Georgia, would destroy all who opposed him and those who threatened his paranoiac mind. Few men in history carry such a horrific biography but he stands with men like Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung and Adolf Hitler.

In his defense, some have claimed that he saved Russia from the Nazi’s through his leadership and forced industrialization but at what cost? He used humans like bullets throwing them at the Nazi’s or into slave labor to industrialize his country. Stalin, despite being warned over and over that the Nazi’s were going to attack the Soviet Union, refused to set up defenses that would have saved the lives of millions of people.

During the Great Purges of 1937-39, Stalin had no qualms about ordering the execution of innocent people for no other reason than they were alive. Anyone who he perceived as being a threat as well as their families, friends and associates were destroyed or sent to inhumane labor camps. The incredible toll it took on his people and those surrounding him were incalculable.

If you’ve been listening to my post-Stalin podcasts you would by now understand how he emasculated the leaders that followed him. The idea of independent thought was squashed, reforms almost impossible to successfully pull off and a system so corrupt that it collapsed in 1991. Khrushchev tried to repudiate things in the 1950’s and early 1960’s but was defeated by Brezhnev and his allies who tried to bring back some of Stalin’s ways to squash open discussions of the problems facing the Soviet Union.

While some may think I’m being harsh in my assessment of Stalin, I can’t justify any other thought process. Spending weeks looking at all the evidence, especially the material that was opened after perestroika, I cannot have an opinion any less than his being, as my mother used to call him, “a beast.”

]]>https://russianrulershistory.com/stalins-birthday/feed/2Chechnya and the First Chechen Warhttps://russianrulershistory.com/chechnya-and-the-first-chechen-war-2/
https://russianrulershistory.com/chechnya-and-the-first-chechen-war-2/#respondMon, 10 Dec 2012 19:51:18 +0000http://russianrulershistory.com/?p=551Chechnya, is a country found in the southeastern part of Europe in the Northern Caucasus mountains. It was annexed by the Russian Empire in the 1870’s. It was later joined with Ingushetia to form the autonomous republic of Chechen-Ingushetia in the late 1930s as a member state in the USSR. Its time as a member state of the Soviet Union […]

]]>Chechnya, is a country found in the southeastern part of Europe in the Northern Caucasus mountains. It was annexed by the Russian Empire in the 1870’s. It was later joined with Ingushetia to form the autonomous republic of Chechen-Ingushetia in the late 1930s as a member state in the USSR. Its time as a member state of the Soviet Union was not a good one as we shall see.

What is remarkable about Chechnya is that it is home to one of the earliest known human settlements, dating back to 125,000 BCE. Ever since the 1400’s, Chechnya has been in constant strife trying to remain independent of foreign rule. Unfortunately for them, they were stuck between two great empires, the Ottomans and the Russians. They converted as a people to Sunni Islam so they were more closely allied to the Turks as opposed to the Russians. This was not to prove to be a viable alliance as the Ottoman Empire began a steady decline while the Russians were expanding. Chechnya was eventually absorbed into Russia in 1875.

This history of rebellion did not sit well with Joseph Stalin as you might imagine. The NKVD, under orders from Stalin, began mass deportations of millions of Chechens and Ingush peoples. The were sent to the Kazakh SSR and Siberia in 1944. This was supposed punishment for helping the Nazi’s during the Great Patriotic War. While under Nikita Khrushchev, they were gradually allowed to return to their homeland. Although the program of Russification was kept in effect. This was to cause a festering hatred of the Russians.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 an independence movement was founded called Chechen National Congress. This group was led by former Soviet Air Force General and new Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev. Then Russian President Boris Yeltsin was opposed to the independence of the country and tried to send a military force to invade the country and subdue it on December 11, 1994. For two years the two countries fought but like Afghanistan, the mountainous regions within Chechnya proved impossible to control. On August 31, 1996, a peace treaty was signed and hostilities for the moment were over.

A second war in Chechnya was begun in 1999 and lasted over nine years with Russian victory at a grave cost. Rebels continue to harass Russian troops and on occasion terrorist attacks have taken place on Russian soil.

]]>https://russianrulershistory.com/chechnya-and-the-first-chechen-war-2/feed/0Tsar Mikhail Romanov?https://russianrulershistory.com/tsar-mikhail-romanov/
https://russianrulershistory.com/tsar-mikhail-romanov/#commentsTue, 04 Dec 2012 21:57:57 +0000http://russianrulershistory.com/?p=521On December 4, 1878, Mikhail Alexanderovich Romanov, the last Tsar of Russia was born. He was the youngest son of Tsar Alexander III and brother of Tsar Nicholas II. He was the first, but not the last, Romanov to be murdered by the Bolsheviks. Born into royalty, when he was born he was fifth in […]

On December 4, 1878, Mikhail Alexanderovich Romanov, the last Tsar of Russia was born. He was the youngest son of Tsar Alexander III and brother of Tsar Nicholas II. He was the first, but not the last, Romanov to be murdered by the Bolsheviks.

Born into royalty, when he was born he was fifth in line to the Romanov dynasty. When his grandfather Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881, he moved up to fourth. With the death of his father Tsar Alexander III in 1994 and the ascension of his brother Tsar Nicholas II, he became second in line behind his brother George. George died in an motorcycle accident in 1899 which made Mikhail the next in line. When Nicholas’s son Alexei was born, he was no longer next but because of the boys delicate health, having hemophilia, he was regarded as the likely heir should anything happen to his brother.

While most would think that being born into a family as wealthy as the Romanov’s would mean a life of luxury, it was not so with Mikhail and his siblings. Tsar Alexander III believed that the children should live a spartan life, sleeping on hard beds, and washing themselves in cold water. Still, life for them was far better than the majority of Russians of the time. Life changed dramatically for Mikhail as his father died when he was just 15 years of age. He was quickly enrolled in military school to prepare him for the potential to take over as Tsar should it come to that.

His love life began in controversy as he fell in love with his first cousin, Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Their proposed marriage was denied by both the Russian Orthodox Church as well as his brother, Tsar Nicholas II. He reluctantly ended the relationship. Next up was a relationship that horrified the Tsar’s family as Mikhail fell in love with a commoner, Alexandra Kossikovskaya. Dina as she was known was never accepted by the family as they had her followed constantly by the Russian secret Police, the Okhrana.

Eventually, he met someone Natalia Sergeyevna Wulfert, the wife of a fellow military officer. The Tsar’s family was once again aghast at Mikhail. Eventually she would divorce her husband to marry Mikhail but much to the chagrin of his family, she gave birth to a boy George, before the divorce was finalized. The Romanov’s back dated the divorce to avoid further embarrassment.

When World War I began, Mikhail asked to return to Russia with his wife and child to help with the war effort. He served bravely in the war but he felt that it was a tragedy for the people. With the war going so poorly for the Russians, he was further dismayed when his brother Tsar Nicholas II decided to take over as Supreme Commander. His countless mistakes caused great suffering and terrible casualties among the brave Russian soldiers.

Mikhail believed that the people were beginning to oppose his brothers reign and told him so in a letter in 1916. By March 15, 1917, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated, first giving his son Alexei the throne but after careful thinking, he changed his mind and gave up his throne to brother Mikhail. He wrote, “We have judged it right to abdicate the Throne of the Russian State and to lay down the Supreme Power. Not wishing to be parted from Our Beloved Son, We hand over Our Succession to Our Brother the Grand Duke Mikhail Aleksandrovich and Bless Him on his accession to the Throne.”

Mikhail was not told of the decree until the next morning. After careful deliberation and pressure from the Provisional Government, Mikhail conditionally declined the offer, effectively ending the Romanov Dynasty. Nicholas was very disappointed but had little choice in the matter.

On August 21, 1917, Mikhail was put under house arrest and while later released, the Bolsheviks, now in power, rearrested him. On June 13, 1918, Mikhail Alexanderovich Romanov, would become the first of the royal family to be murdered. It was an ignominious death of a man so close to the pinnacle of power as the presumptive last Tsar of Russia.